Cancer Schmancer (10 page)

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outs together. I was new to the neighborhood, but she seemed to know where to go for everything—the best seafood, the best hikes, even where to get your car washed. I liked her from the start. She was blond and pretty, very chatty, and a devoted wife and mother.

While waiting for his return call, Leesa, who was in a difficult situation at best, thought she’d lighten up the moment by telling me a story about her dog and a sick bird she’d rescued. But what to her seemed like a light and humorous tale took for me a weirdly macabre turn when the bird got trapped in the bathroom with a claustrophobic dog. In its panic the dog got caught up in the towel the bird was resting in and inadvertently killed it.

“Oy, that’s an awful story,” I exclaimed. “I feel so bad for the bird,” which I immediately identified with. And this was supposed to be funny?

Poor Leesa, all she could say was, “I guess it is kinda horrible.

I don’t know why it seemed funny at the time. . . .”

When the phone rang, thank God it was John. First words out of his mouth were, “Sweetie, what’s the matter?”

“The doctor called and said I have cancer.”

“Oh my God, I’m coming right now. I’ll be there in forty-five minutes.” What he said was so perfect, it still chokes me up when I think of it. “Is anybody there?” he went on to ask. “I don’t think you should be alone.” I told him I was with Leesa, and that Ramon and Angelica were there, too. “Okay, I’m leaving right now, I love you,” and he hung up. He later told me he’d run like a madman into his boss’s office, said his girlfriend had just found out she had cancer, and he had to leave at once.

It’s a blessing when the person you love shows the kind of instincts you’d hoped they’d have when push comes to shove. Illness is the great equalizer. It doesn’t matter who you are, rich or poor, young or old, fat or thin, sick is sick. And if you’re blessed, those around you will rise to the occasion in your hour of need.

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The next call I made was to my parents. Now, who wants to call their parents and tell them their child has cancer? What a monumentally difficult task it was, for me anyway. You see, the nature of my relationship with my mother and father had been one where I’d always tried to be the worry-free child, in contrast to my sister, whom they worried about constantly. My mom gets scared easily by many, many things and worries about everything, but especially her loved ones. For me, being the cause of any pain for them went completely against the grain. I always felt like I had to be strong for them.

Years ago, after the “break-in” (our euphemism for the rape), I’d found it so impossibly hard to tell them that my sister was the one who had to make the call. I was so worried about them, I couldn’t allow myself to turn to my own parents after being raped at gunpoint. It was always so twisted in my mind. I thought I knew what was best, but I never even gave them a chance to show strength.

When my sister was about eight, she had a seizure on the play-ground one afternoon. At the hospital I witnessed my mother completely lose it, and it frightened me. My mother was so sad, so upset, so hysterical. I never wanted to be the cause of that. I developed the bad habit of denying my own needs.

Well, this time was going to be different. I hadn’t been in therapy for three years not to be able to put myself first. I’d learned how to be human, to be able to take as well as give, to sometimes be needy and feel justified in my needs rather than selfish. Can you imagine having to pay someone to teach you that?

I picked up the phone and dialed. My mom answered since my dad was out playing golf. There’s no way to say something like this except to just come right out and say it, so that’s what I did. All my life I’d tried to protect my mother from pain. I just didn’t think she could cope. Well, the first thing my mother said after I told her I 9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 79

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had cancer was, “Okay, let’s not panic. What’s the next thing we have to do?”

There were no hysterics, but rather a focused strength. She said she and my father would come out for the operation. I said we shouldn’t decide anything until I spoke with the surgeon on Friday. Old habits die hard, but there I was not wanting them to have to cancel their already planned trip to visit my sister and the kids. I wish my dad had been home when I called. I don’t know what my mom did or whom she dialed when she hung up from me, but I’m sure she experienced her own private hell.

After Leesa left for her next appointment, I called Elaine, who’s always been there when I needed her and is like a second mother to me. Without skipping a beat she said, “Honey, I’m coming with you to the oncologist,” and all I could say was,

“Okay.”

Then I called Rachel, who is, in my opinion, a brilliant woman, and she immediately zeroed in on the oncologist’s name so she could cross-reference it with her own network of doctors. Rachel was particularly helpful in these circumstances because she herself is a survivor of a catastrophic neurological illness. If anyone knew how to navigate through the tough times ahead, it was her. She, too, said she’d go with me to the doctor’s, and once again I said,

“Okay.” I swear, at another time I’d have been unable to say those two little syllables: okay.

When John came home, we hugged for a really long time. We kissed and made love. Slowly, gently, lovingly, as a tear rolled from the outer corner of my eye. He was exactly what the doctor ordered! I remembered my mom once telling me a story of a man who didn’t want to have sex with his wife when she was diagnosed with a gynecological cancer, because he was afraid somehow he’d get the cancer, too. I’d always thought that was a selfish 9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 80

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and uninformed way for a man to handle what was already a terrible situation.

John was beautiful and sensitive, though. I was overwhelmed by the tenderness and love I felt from him. Afterward, I realized I hadn’t eaten, so we sought out a restaurant that was still serving lunch. I suggested going to the Ivy at the Shore in Santa Monica.

There’s a nice furniture store right next door and I’d been wanting to go there for some time.

John was obviously eager to do anything to lift my spirits, so we left the dog at home and ventured out. As we sat on the restaurant’s terrace, I gazed out at the swaying palms and the Santa Monica pier just beyond. The Ferris wheel was turning, cars were honking, people were roller skating, and life seemed to be going on all around us.

This gal Anne, whom I’d socialized with several times, was just finishing up her lunch and popped by our table on her way out. She was very high energy and excited to see us, chatting up a storm about her job, her home, whatever. I can’t even remember now. She was like a talking head. I could see her lips moving and I heard sound coming out of her mouth, but all I could think of was how surreal it all was, to be conversing as if everything were normal. She had no idea. Afterward, I blindly walked through the furniture store, muttering, “Purchase, I want to make a purchase.”

But I was unable to focus or make any decisions, so we got into the car and drove off.

John came up with an idea and started heading toward the freeway on-ramp. “Let’s go into Beverly Hills and buy you that friendship ring we’ve been talking about,” he exclaimed. Here it was June, and we’d been talking about this friendship ring since Valentine’s Day. He hadn’t known what to get me, and I said that I’d like something meaningful and everlasting like a friendship ring. No, I didn’t make that up. Friendship rings are a real thing, 9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 81

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made up by some other clever girl who wanted a ring from her man. For some reason the word friendship conjures up less fear than, let’s say, engagement might.

Well, I’d seen something I liked while shopping at Barney’s one day, and I liked a little platinum ring from the Tiffany’s catalog as well. “Where should we go?” he asked. But I felt bad, like he was only suggesting this because he felt sorry for me and not because he truly wanted to. He insisted that he’d always in-tended on us going to pick out the friendship ring, but that a million things kept getting in the way. Now was the perfect time, and today was the perfect day. Who was I to argue? It was a lovely gesture.

So I called both stores to see how late they’d be open, because it was now around five in the afternoon and the shops in Beverly Hills tend to close early. As fate would have it, Barney’s had just closed and Tiffany’s was open another half hour. So Tiffany’s it was!

As we drove from the beach to Beverly Hills in a race against the clock, I felt loved. We got to Tiffany’s just as they were closing.

I knew exactly what I wanted and they happened to have a ring that fit perfectly, a beautifully simple platinum-and-diamond Elsa Peretti friendship ring that I slipped on my thumb and haven’t taken off since. As we drove home, I gazed down at my finger and contemplated my life. The future was uncertain and nothing made sense. I felt like a stranger in a strange land.

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The First Night with Cancer

J u n e 1 3 , 2 0 0 0

that evening when we got home, the house was empty and dimly lit by a night-light. Chester was asleep in the bedroom.

As the sky darkened, so did the weight of the cancer. I walked around the house quietly, going through the motions of preparing for bed. The fish tank light illuminated the kitchen, John read in the living room, and I slipped into my bathroom to wash my face.

Yup, “going through the motions” is a good way to describe it, because I was really somewhere else. Somewhere far away and deep inside my head. I opened a drawer, removed the toothpaste, turned on the faucet. I could see myself doing it all, but it all seemed strange, foreign, and out of step.

As I sat at my vanity, I thought about my things. My chair, my makeup, my toothbrush. What will happen to them after I’m gone?

Will they be trash for the garbage man to haul away? The toothbrush was expensive and I’ve got Lancôme I haven’t even opened yet. I felt myself plunging deeper and deeper into a horrible feeling of isolation. I was sitting there staring at my image, my face, me, when the piercing ring of the telephone broke through my silence. It was my sister, Nadine.

Now, my older sister and I have had a complicated relationship our whole lives. I say “older,” but really we’re only a year and eigh-9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 84

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teen days apart, a closeness in age that definitely exacerbated issues growing up. It’s not easy being the “older” one when a baby comes into the house, especially when you’re still a baby yourself.

And since Nadine was always much taller than I, it made her seem even older. In fact, I never realized how close in age we really were until quite recently.

As an adult, being a year apart means nothing, but for us, as children, it created an enormous gap, each of us trying to define ourselves as individuals through friends, hobbies, sports, even food preferences. And everything seemed to be opposite. I was left-handed, she was right. I had dark hair, she had light. She liked ath-letics while I preferred performing arts.

As a teenager Nadine was always rebellious, which constantly worried my parents. In fact, for the better part of my life, I was either a witness or sounding board for my parents’ endless worrying over my sister. In a desire not to give them any more cause for worry, or perhaps out of a competitive need to be the “good one,”

a lifelong pattern of self-denial, of not expressing my needs, of giving rather than taking, became my M.O.

Even as an adult, after I moved to California and was married to Peter, I hardly had a conversation with my mother that wasn’t dominated by worries about my sister. First there was the issue that she wasn’t married; then it was leaving her alone when my parents moved to Florida. These days, it’s how hard she works while trying to raise two kids. It’s always something, and because it’s always been something, I think it prevented Nadine and I from experiencing the closeness I envied in other siblings.

Consequently, I’d never opened my eyes to see how much I had in common with her. We both were successful, career-driven women. We both loved to travel and hike. We both loved culture, theater, and museums. We loved restaurants, all different 9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 85

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kinds of foods and entertaining. We could have been best friends, but unfortunately, that friendship we should have been sharing our entire lives was something we’d missed out on.

So it was my sister, Nadine, on the phone. Now, in all the time I was experiencing symptoms and searching for a diagnosis, I’d never once picked up the phone and reached out to her, an experienced nurse married to a doctor. What an idiot. How stupid of me, but asking for help wasn’t in my vocabulary.

“How ya doin’?” she asked with concern.

“Ya know, I’ve been better,” was all I could answer. I really didn’t know how I was doing or what I was feeling, but I guess numb would have been a more appropriate answer.

“When do you see the surgeon?” She sounded businesslike.

“Um, Friday, not until Friday.” I felt whipped, sapped of my strength.

“Did they grade the tumor, any mention of a letter or number?” She sounded like a nurse, my nurse.

“All she said was that it was very early, very slow growing, and very noninvasive.” By soft-pedaling it, I hoped to convince myself it was hardly anything. The fact that it was indeed cancer was merely incidental. I still needed to be the shtarkar, the workhorse everyone else had come to depend on.

“Next time you talk to her, try to get a grade number, too,” she said, as I wrote everything down on a list of things to remember to ask the surgeon on Friday.